Search
The sentence for director Yevgeniya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk in the case concerning the play Finist the Brave Falcon has been upheld at the cassation stage, reports Mediazona.
In July last year, the court of first instance sentenced both theatre practitioners in the case of ‘condoning terrorism’ (part 2, article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) to six years in a penal colony. On appeal, the sentences of Berkovich and Petriychuk were reduced. Berkovich received five years and seven months, while the playwright received five years and ten months.
At the Supreme Court hearing, journalists were banned from filming, including the screen showing Yevgeniya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk. They attended by video link from penal colony No. 3 in the settlement of Pribrezhny in Kostroma Region, and No. 5 in Mozhaysk, a town west of Moscow.
During the hearing, lawyer Kseniya Karpinskaya noted that neither the first-instance nor appellate courts had actually watched the performance of Finist the Brave Falcon. According to the lawyer, Berkovich and Petriychuk are accused simply of the actors reading the play aloud. However, neither the director nor the playwright took part in the actual performance.
Moreover, Karpinskaya argued that the script, the text of the reading, and both video-recorded performances included in the case materials do not match. Yet, the verdict claims otherwise regarding the theatre practitioners.
The defence requested their acquittal, while prosecutor Andrey Ovcharenko asked the court to leave the sentences unchanged.
At the hearing, Yevgeniya Berkovich spoke about a severe depressive episode after the death of her grandmother Nina Katerli. Her other grandmother is also seriously ill. Berkovich worries that this elderly woman ‘will not survive’ until her own sentence is over.
According to the director, her two adopted daughters ‘with severe mental disabilities’ are getting worse ‘because their mother is in prison.’
“Does the Russian state really have no more powerful enemies than a 90-year-old old woman, two sick orphans, and two not very healthy women? Is there really no one else to fight against, can’t you stop? Some of these people are men, officers, people with some idea of honour. I ask you, your honour, please, stop,” Berkovich said.
She also added that in the penal colonies, she and Petriychuk are ‘forbidden from receiving books.’ Berkovich herself has been banned from ‘working in her profession in any form.’
“All of this can, of course, be endured. But not being able to eat normally, not being able to sleep properly, not being able to get my medication—that could also end badly, and I would rather avoid that. I am not used to complaining, but my condition is bad and getting worse. I am suffering a severe depressive episode, which it’s impossible to treat in these conditions,” Yevgeniya Berkovich noted.
The case against the two theatre practitioners was initiated over the production of Finist the Brave Falcon, which Berkovich directed from a script by Petriychuk. On 4 May 2023, law enforcement searched the homes of Berkovich’s parents and grandmother, and arrested her in Moscow. Later, it became known that Svetlana Petriychuk was also detained upon arrival at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow. The following day, the two women were sent to pre-trial detention.
The ‘destructological’ expert report carried out by ‘destructologist’ Roman Silantyev claimed the play ‘glorifies’ ISIS fighters and promotes ‘the ideology of radical feminism.’
In June 2023, the Ministry of Justice recognised that such an expert report cannot be used as evidence in court, since it lacks scientific validity and ‘destructology’ itself ‘is not a science.’
The investigation also conducted a psychological-linguistic expert analysis, which claimed to have found justification of terrorism in the text of the play. Petriychuk’s lawyer, Sergey Badamshin, said at one of the hearings that the play Finist the Brave Falcon received high praise from the Federal Penitentiary Service structures, and the play’s text was read at Correctional Colony No. 2 in Tomsk, a city in Siberia, in 2019.
After the verdict was announced, Berkovich said that productions by her theatre project ‘Daughters of SOSO’ would no longer appear on stage. She expressed concern that her political persecution, including being added to the list of ‘terrorists and extremists,’ could threaten the safety of the team.
- Finist the Brave Falcon is a documentary play ‘about women who decided to virtually marry radical Islamists and move to Syria.’ “It is a text about why recruitment works—or rather, what specifically in the structure of Russian society allows it to function,” explained Meduza. In 2022, the play won the Golden Mask award.